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CHAPTER XVI. A HAPPY MEETING

Barrington scarcely closed his eyes that night after he had parted with Withering, so full was he of thinking over all he had heard. “It was,” as he repeated to himself over and over again, “‘such glorious news’ to hear that it was no long-laid plot, no dark treachery, had brought poor George to his grave, and that the trusted friend had not turned out a secret enemy. How prone we are,” thought he, “to suffer our suspicions to grow into convictions, just by the mere force of time. Conyers was neither better nor worse than scores of young fellows entering on life, undisciplined in self-restraint, and untutored by converse with the world; and in his sorrow and repentance he is far and away above most men. It was fine of him to come thus, and become his own accuser, rather than suffer a shade of reproach to rest upon the fame of his friend. And this reparation he would have made years ago, but for my impatience. It was I that would not listen, – would not admit it.

“I believe in my heart, then, this confession has a higher value for me than would the gain of our great suit. It is such a testimony to my brave boy as but one man living could offer. It is a declaration to the world that says, ‘Here am I, high in station, covered with dignities and rich in rewards; yet there was a man whose fate has never interested you, over whose fall you never sorrowed; hundreds of times my superior.’ What a reward is this for all my life of toil and struggle, – what a glorious victory, when the battle looked so doubtful! People will see at last it is not an old man’s phantasy; it is not the headlong affection of a father for his son has made me pursue this reparation for him here. There is a witness ‘come to judgment,’ who will tell them what George Barrington was; how noble as a man, how glorious as a soldier.”

While the old man revelled in the happiness of these thoughts, so absorbed was he by them that he utterly forgot the immediate object which had occasioned his journey, – forgot Stapylton and the meeting, and all that had led to it. Thus passed the hours of the night; and as the day broke, he arose, impatient to actual feverishness for the coming interview. He tried by some occupation to fill up the time. He sat down to write to his sister an account of all Withering had told him, leaving the rest to be added after the meeting; but he found, as he read it over, that after the mention of George’s name, nothing dropped from his pen but praises of him. It was all about his generosity, his open-heartedness, and his bravery. “This would seem downright extravagant,” said he, as he crushed the paper in his hand, “till she hears it from the lips of Conyers himself.” He began another letter, but somehow again he glided into the self-same channel.

“This will never do,” said he; “there’s nothing for it but a brisk walk.” So saying he sallied out into the deserted streets, for few were about at that early hour. Barrington turned his steps towards the country, and soon gained one of those shady alleys which lead towards Finglas. It was a neighborhood he had once known well, and a favorite resort of those pleasant fellows who thought they compensated for a hard night at Daly’s by sipping syllabub of a morning on a dewy meadow. He once had rented a little cottage there; a fancy of poor George’s it was, that there were some trout in the stream beside it; and Barrington strolled along till he came to a little mound, from which he could see the place, sadly changed and dilapidated since he knew it. Instead of the rustic bridge that crossed the river, a single plank now spanned the stream, and in the disorder and neglect of all around, it was easy to see it had fallen to the lot of a peasant to live in it. As Barrington was about to turn away, he saw an old man – unmistakably a gentleman – ascending the hill, with a short telescope in his hand. As the path was a narrow one, he waited, therefore, for the other’s arrival, before he began to descend himself. With a politeness which in his younger days Irish gentlemen derived from intercourse with France, Barring-ton touched his hat as he passed the stranger, and the other, as if encouraged by the show of courtesy, smiled as he returned the salute, and said, —

“Might I take the liberty to ask you if you are acquainted with this locality?”

“Few know it better, or, at least, knew it once,” said Barrington.

“It was the classic ground of Ireland in days past,” said the stranger. “I have heard that Swift lived here.”

“Yes; but you cannot see his house from this. It was nearer to Santry, where you see that wood yonder. There was, however, a celebrity once inhabited that small cottage before us. It was the home of Parnell.”

“Is that Parnell’s cottage?” asked the stranger, with eagerness; “that ruined spot, yonder?”

“Yes. It was there he wrote some of his best poems. I knew the room well he lived in.”

“How I would like to see it!” cried the other.

“You are an admirer of Parnell, then?” said Barrington, with a smile of courteous meaning.

“I will own to you, sir, it was less of Parnell I was thinking than of a dear friend who once talked to me of that cottage. He had lived there, and cherished the memory of that life when far away from it; and so well had he described every walk and path around it, each winding of the river, and every shady nook, that I had hoped to recognize it without a guide.”

“Ah, it is sadly changed of late. Your friend had not probably seen it for some years?”

“Let me see. It was in a memorable year he told me he lived there, – when some great demonstration was made by the Irish volunteers, with the Bishop of Down at their head. The Bishop dined there on that day.”

“The Earl of Bristol dined that day with me, there,” said Barrington, pointing to the cottage.

“May I ask with whom I have the honor to speak, sir?” said the stranger, bowing.

“Was it George Barrington told you this?” said the old man, trembling with eagerness: “was it he who lived here? I may ask, sir, for I am his father!”

“And I am Ormsby Conyers,” said the other; and his face became pale, and his knees trembled as he said it.

“Give me your hand, Conyers,” cried Barrington, – “the hand that my dear boy has so often pressed in friendship. I know all that you were to each other, all that you would be to his memory.”

“Can you forgive me?” said Conyers.

“I have, for many a year. I forgave you when I thought you had been his enemy. I now know you had only been your own to sacrifice such love, such affection as he bore you.”

“I never loved him more than I have hated myself for my conduct towards him.”

“Let us talk of George, – he loved us both,” said Barrington, who still held Conyers by the hand. “It is a theme none but yourself can rival me in interest for.”

It was not easy for Conyers to attain that calm which could enable him to answer the other’s questions; but by degrees he grew to talk freely, assisted a good deal by the likeness of the old man to his son, – a resemblance in manner even as much as look, – and thus, before they reached town again, they had become like familiar friends.

Barrington could never hear enough of George; even of the incidents he had heard of by letter, he liked to listen to the details again, and to mark how all the traits of that dear boy had been appreciated by others.

“I must keep you my prisoner,” said Barrington, as they gained the door of his hotel. “The thirst I have is not easily slaked; remember that for more than thirty years I have had none to talk to me of my boy! I know all about your appointment with Withering; he was to have brought you here this morning to see me, and my old friend will rejoice when he comes and finds us here together.”

“He was certain you would come up to town,” said Conyers, “when you got his letters. You would see at once that there were matters which should be promptly dealt with; and he said, ‘Barrington will be my guest at dinner to-morrow.’”

“Eh? – how? – what was it all about? George has driven all else out of my head, and I declare to you that I have not the very vaguest recollection of what Wither-ing’s letters contained. Wait a moment; a light is breaking on me. I do remember something of it all now. To be sure! What a head I have! It was all about Stapylton. By the way, General, how you would have laughed had you heard the dressing Withering gave me last night, when I told him I was going to give Stapylton a meeting.”

“A hostile meeting?”

“Well, if you like to give it that new-fangled name, General, which I assure you was not in vogue when I was a young man. Withering rated me soundly for the notion, reminded me of my white hairs and such other disqualifications, and asked me indignantly, ‘What the world would say when they came to hear of it?’ ‘What would the world say if they heard I declined it, Tom?’ was my answer. Would they not exclaim, ‘Here is one of that fire-eating school who are always rebuking us for our laxity in matters of honor; look at him and say, are these the principles of his sect?’”

Conyers shook his head dissentingly, and smiled.

“No, no!” said Barrington, replying to the other’s look, “you are just of my own mind! A man who believes you to have injured him claims reparation as a matter of right. I could not say to Stapylton, ‘I will not meet you!’”

“I did say so, and that within a fortnight.”

“You said so, and under what provocation?”

“He grossly insulted my son, who was his subaltern; he outraged him by offensive language, and he dared even to impugn his personal courage. It was in one of those late riots where the military were called out; and my boy, intrusted with the duty of dispersing an assemblage, stopped to remonstrate where he might have charged, and actually relieved the misery he had his orders to have trampled under the feet of his squadron. Major Stapylton could have reprimanded, he might have court-martialled him; he had no right to attempt to dishonor him. My son left the service, – I made him leave on the spot, – and we went over to France to meet this man. I sent for Proctor to be my boy’s friend, and my letter found him at Sir Gilbert Stapylton’s, at Hollowcliffe. To explain his hurried departure, Proctor told what called him away. ‘And will you suffer your friend to meet that adventurer,’ said Sir Gilbert, ‘who stole my nephew’s name if he did not steal more?’ To be brief, he told that this fellow had lived with Colonel Howard Stapylton, British Resident at Ghurtnapore, as a sort of humble private secretary. ‘In the cholera that swept the district Howard died, and although his will, deposited at Calcutta, contained several legacies, the effects to redeem them were not to be discovered. Meanwhile this young fellow assumed the name of Stapylton, gave himself out for his heir, and even threatened to litigate some landed property in England with Howard’s brother. An intimation that if he dared to put his menace in action a full inquiry into his conduct should be made, stopped him, and we heard no more of him, – at least, for a great many years. When an old Madras friend of Howard’s who came down to spend his Christmas, said, “Who do you think I saw in town last week, but that young scamp Howard used to call his Kitmagar, and who goes by the name of Stapylton?” we were so indignant at first that we resolved on all manner of exposures; but learning that he had the reputation of a good officer, and had actually distinguished himself at Waterloo, we relented. Since that, other things have come to our knowledge to make us repent our lenity. In fact, he is an adventurer in its very worst sense, and has traded upon a certain amount of personal courage to cover a character of downright ignominy.’ Proctor, on hearing all this, recalled me to England; and declared that he had traced enough to this man’s charge to show he was one whom no gentleman could meet. It would appear that some recent discoveries had been made about him at the Horse Guards also; for when Proctor asked for a certain piece of information from one of his friends in office there, he heard, for answer, ‘We hope to know that, and more, in a day or two.’”

“Do you know that I ‘m sorry for it, – heartily sorry?” said Barrington. “The fellow had that stamp of manliness about him that would seem the pledge of a bold, straightforward nature.”

“I have a high value for courage, but it won’t do everything.”

“More ‘s the pity, for it renders all that it aids of tenfold more worth.”

“And on the back of all this discovery comes Hunter’s letter, which Withering has sent you, to show that this Stapylton has for years back been supplying the Indian Directors with materials to oppose your claims.”

“Nothing ever puzzled us so much as the way every weak point of our case was at once seized upon, and every doubt we ourselves entertained exaggerated into an impassable barrier. Withering long suspected that some secret enemy was at work within our own lines, and repeatedly said that we were sold. The difficulty is, why this man should once have been our enemy, and now should strive so eagerly to be not alone our friend, but one of us. You have heard he proposed for my granddaughter?”

“Fred suspected his intentions in that quarter, but we were not certain of them.”

“And it is time I should ask after your noble-hearted boy. How is he, and where?”

“He is here, at my hotel, impatiently waiting your permission to go down to ‘The Home.’ He has a question to ask there, whose answer will be his destiny.”

“Has Josephine turned another head then?” said Barring-ton, laughing.

“She has won a very honest heart; as true and as honorable a nature as ever lived,” said Conyers, with emotion. “Your granddaughter does not know, nor needs ever to know, the wrong I have done her father; and if you have forgiven me, you will not remember it against my boy.”

“But what do you yourself say to all this? You have never seen the girl?”

“Fred has.”

“You know nothing about her tastes, her temper, her bringing up.”

“Fred does.”

“Nor are you aware that the claim we have so long relied on is almost certain to be disallowed. I have scarcely a hope now remaining with regard to it.”

“I have more than I need; and if Fred will let me have a bungalow in his garden, I’ll make it all over to him tomorrow.”

“It is then with your entire consent he would make this offer?”

“With my whole heart in it! I shall never feel I have repaired the injury I have done George Barrington till I have called his daughter my own.”

Old Barrington arose, and walked up and down with slow and measured steps. At last he halted directly in front of General Conyers, and said, —

“If you will do me one kindness, I will agree to everything. What am I saying? I agree already; and I would not make a bargain of my consent; but you will not refuse me a favor?”

“Ask me anything, and I promise it on the faith of a gentleman.”

“It is this, then; that you will stand by me in this affair of Stapylton’s. I have gone too far for subtleties or niceties. It is no question of who was his father, or what was his own bringing up. I have told him I should be at his orders, and don’t let me break my word.”

“If you choose me for your friend, Barrington, you must not dictate how I am to act for you.”

“That is quite true; you are perfectly correct there,” said the other, in some confusion.

“On that condition, then, that I am free to do for you what I would agree to in my own case, I accept the charge.”

“And there is to be no humbug of consideration for my age and my white hairs; none of that nonsense about a fellow with one leg in the grave. Mark you, Conyers, I will stand none of these; I have never taken a writ of ease not to serve on a jury, nor will I hear of one that exempts me from the rights of a gentleman.”

“I have got your full powers to treat, and you must trust me. Where are we to find Stapylton’s friend?”

“He gave me an address which I never looked at. Here it is!” and he drew a card from his pocket.

“Captain Duff Brown, late Fifth Fusiliers, Holt’s Hotel, Charing Cross.”

“Do you know him?” asked Barrington, as the other stood silently re-reading the address.

“Yes, thoroughly,” said he, with a dry significance. “The man who selects Duff Brown to act for him in an affair of honor must be in a sore strait. It is a sorry indorsement to character. He had to leave the service from the imputation of foul play in a duel himself; and I took an active part against him.”

“Will this make your position unpleasant to you, – would you rather not act for me?”

“Quite the reverse. It is more than ever necessary you should have some one who not only knows the men he is to deal with, but is known himself to them. It is a preliminary will save a world of trouble.”

“When can we set out?”

“To-night by the eight-o’clock packet, we can sail for Liverpool; but let us first of all despatch Fred to ‘The Home.’ The poor boy will be half dead with anxiety till he knows I have your permission.”

“I ‘ll accredit him with a letter to my sister; not that he needs it, for he is one of her prime favorites. And now for another point. Withering must be made believe that we are all off together for the country this evening. He is so opposed to this affair with Stapylton, that he is in a mood to do anything to prevent it.”

“Well thought of; and here comes the man himself in search of us.”

“I have been half over the town after you this morning, General,” said Withering, as he entered; “and your son, too, could make nothing of your absence. He is in the carriage at the door now, not knowing whether he ought to come up.”

“I ‘ll soon reassure him on that score,” said Barrington, as he left the room, and hastened downstairs with the step of one that defied the march of time.

CHAPTER XVII. MEET COMPANIONSHIP

In a very modest chamber of a house in one of the streets which lead from the Strand to the Thames, two persons sat at supper. It is no time for lengthened introductions, and I must present Captain Duff Brown very hurriedly to my reader, as he confronted his friend Stapylton at table. The Captain was a jovial-looking, full-whiskered, somewhat corpulent man, with a ready reply, a ready laugh, and a hand readier than either, whether the weapon wielded was a billiard-cue or a pistol.

The board before them was covered with oysters and oyster-shells, porter in its pewter, a square-shaped decanter of gin, and a bundle of cigars. The cloth was dirty, the knives unclean, and the candles ill-matched and of tallow; but the guests did not seem to have bestowed much attention to these demerits, but ate and drank like men who enjoyed their fare.

“The best country in Europe, – the best in the world, – I call England for a fellow who knows life,” cried the Captain. “There is nothing you cannot do; nothing you cannot have in it.”

“With eight thousand a year, perhaps,” said Stapylton, sarcastically.

“No need of anything like it. Does any man want a better supper than we have had to-night? What better could he have? And the whole cost not over five, or at most six shillings for the pair of us.”

“You may talk till you are hoarse, Duff, but I’ll not stay in it When once I have settled these two or three matters I have told you of, I’ll start for – I don’t much care whither. I’ll go to Persia, or perhaps to the Yankees.”

“I always keep America for the finish!” said the other. “It is to the rest of the world what the copper hell is to Crockford’s, – the last refuge when one walks in broken boots and in low company. But tell me, what have you done to-day; where did you go after we parted?”

“I went to the Horse Guards, and saw Blanchard, – pompous old humbug that he is. I told him that I had made up my mind to sell out; that I intended to take service in a foreign army, – he hates foreigners, – and begged he would expedite my affairs with his Royal Highness, as my arrangements could not admit of delay.”

“And he told you that there was an official routine, out of which no officer need presume to expect his business could travel?”

“He told me no such thing. He flatly said, ‘Your case is already before the Commander-in-Chief, Major Stapylton, and you may rely on it there will be no needless delay in dealing with it.”

“That was a threat, I take it.”

“Of course it was a threat; and I only said, ‘It will be the first instance of the kind, then, in the department,’ and left him.”

“Where to, after that?”

“I next went to Gregory’s, the magistrate of police. I wanted to see the informations the black fellow swore to; and as I knew a son of Gregory’s in the Carbiniers, I thought I could manage it; but bad luck would have it that the old fellow should have in his hands some unsettled bills with my indorsements on them, – fact; Gregory and I used to do a little that way once, – and he almost got a fit when he heard my name.”

“Tried back after that, eh?”

“Went on to Renshaw’s and won fifty pounds at hazard, took Blake’s odds on Diadem, and booked myself for a berth in the Boulogne steamer, which leaves at two this morning.”

“You secured a passport for me, did n’t you?”

“No. You’ll have to come as my servant. The Embassy fellows were all strangers to me, and said they would not give a separate passport without seeing the bearer.”

“All right. I don’t dislike the second cabin, nor the ladies’-maids. What about the pistols?”

“They are yonder under the great-coat. Renshaw lent them. They are not very good, he says, and one of them hangs a little in the fire.”

“They ‘ll be better than the old Irishman’s, that’s certain. You may swear that his tools were in use early in the last century.”

“And himself, too; that’s the worst of it all. I wish it was not a fellow that might be my grandfather.”

“I don’t know. I rather suspect, if I was given to compunctions, I’d have less of them for shaking down the rotten ripe fruit than the blossom.”

“And he ‘s a fine old fellow, too,” said Stapylton, half sadly.

“Why didn’t you tell him to drop in this evening and have a little écarté?”

For a while Stapylton leaned his head on his hand moodily, and said nothing.

“Cheer up, man! Taste that Hollands. I never mixed better,” said Brown.

“I begin to regret now, Duff, that I did n’t take your advice.”

“And run away with her?”

“Yes, it would have been the right course, after all!”

“I knew it. I always said it. I told you over and over again what would happen if you went to work in orderly fashion. They ‘d at once say, ‘Who are your people, – where are they, – what have they?’ Now, let a man be as inventive as Daniel Defoe himself, there will always slip out some flaw or other about a name, or a date, – dates are the very devil! But when you have once carried her off, what can they do but compromise?”

“She would never have consented.”

“I ‘d not have asked her. I ‘d have given her the benefit of the customs of the land she lived in, and made it a regular abduction. Paddy somebody and Terence something else are always ready to risk their necks for a pint of whiskey and a breach of the laws.”

“I don’t think I could have brought myself to it.”

“I could, I promise you.”

“And there ‘s an end of a man after such a thing.”

“Yes, if he fails. If he’s overtaken and thrashed, I grant you he not only loses the game, but gets the cards in his face, besides. But why fail? Nobody fails when he wants to win, – when he determines to win. When I shot De Courcy at Asterabad – ”

“Don’t bring up that affair, at least, as one of precedent, Duff. I neither desire to be tried for a capital felony, nor to have committed one.”

“Capital fiddlesticks! As if men did not fight duels every day of the week; the difference between guilt and innocence being that one fellow’s hand shook, and the other’s was steady. De Courcy would have ‘dropped’ me, if I’d have Jet him.”

“And so you would have carried her off, Master Duff?” said Stapylton, slowly.

“Yes; if she had the pot of money you speak of, and no Lord Chancellor for a guardian. I ‘d have made the thing sure at once.”

“The money she will and must have; so much is certain.”

“Then I ‘d have made the remainder just as certain.”

“It is a vulgar crime, Duff; it would be very hard to stoop to it.”

“Fifty things are harder, – no cash, no credit are harder. The Fleet is harder. But what is that noise? Don’t you hear a knock at the door? Yes, there’s some one without who hasn’t much patience.” So saying, he arose and walked to the door. As he opened it, he started back a little with surprise, for it was a police constable stood before him.

“Not you, Captain, not you, sir! it’s another gentleman I want. I see him at the table there, – Major Stapylton.” By this time the man had entered the room and stood in front of the fire. “I have a warrant against you, Major,” said he, quietly. “Informations have been sworn before Mr. Colt that you intend to fight a duel, and you must appear at the office to-morrow, to enter into your bond, and to give securities to keep the peace.”

“Who swore the informations?” cried Brown.

“What have we to do with that?” said Stapylton, impatiently. “Isn’t the world full of meddling old women? Who wants to know the names?”

“I ‘ll lay the odds it was old Conyers; the greatest humbug in that land of humbugs, – Bengal. It was he that insisted on my leaving the Fifth. Come, Sergeant, out with it. This was General Conyers’s doing?”

“I’m sorry to be obliged to declare you in custody, Major,” said the policeman; “but if you like to come over to Mr. Colt’s private residence, I ‘m sure he ‘d settle the matter this evening.”

“He’ll do no such thing, by George!” cried Brown. “The sneaking dogs who have taken this shabby course shall be exposed in open court. We ‘ll have the names in full, and in every newspaper in England. Don’t compromise the case, Stapylton; make them eat the mess they have cooked, to the last mouthful. We ‘ll show the world what the fighting Irishman and his gallant friend are made of. Major Stapylton is your prisoner, Sergeant?”

The man smiled slightly at the passionate energy of the speaker, and turned to Stapylton. “There ‘s no objection to your going to your lodgings, Major. You ‘ll be at the chief office by ten to-morrow.”

Stapylton nodded assent, and the other retired and closed the door.

“What do you say now?” cried Brown, triumphantly. “Did n’t I tell you this? Did n’t I say that when old Con-yers heard my name, he ‘d say, ‘Oh, there ‘ll be no squaring this business’?”

“It’s just as likely that he said, ‘I ‘ll not confer with that man; he had to leave the service.’”

“More fool you, then, not to have had a more respectable friend. Had you there, Stapylton, – eh?”

“I acknowledge that. All I can say in extenuation is, that I hoped old Barrington, living so long out of the world, would have selected another old mummy like himself, who had never heard of Captain Duff Brown, nor his famous trial at Calcutta.”

“There’s not a man in the kingdom has not heard of me. I ‘m as well known as the first Duke in the land.”

“Don’t boast of it, Duff; even notoriety is not always a cheap luxury.”

“Who knows but you may divide it with me to-morrow or next day?”

“What do you mean, sir? – what do you mean?” cried Stapylton, slapping the table with his clenched hand.

“Only what I said, – that Major Stapylton may furnish the town with a nine-days wonder, vice Captain Duff Brown, forgotten.”

Evidently ashamed of his wrath, Stapylton tried to laugh off the occasion of it, and said, “I suppose neither of us would take the matter much to heart.”

“I ‘ll not go to the office with you to-morrow, Stapylton,” added he, after a pause; “that old Sepoy General would certainly seize the opportunity to open some old scores that I’d as soon leave undisturbed.”

“All right, I think you are prudent there.”

“But I ‘ll be of use in another way. I ‘ll lay in wait for that fellow who reports for the ‘Chronicle,’ the only paper that cares for these things, and I ‘ll have him deep in the discussion of some devilled kidneys when your case is called on.”

“I fancy it does not matter what publicity it obtains.”

“Ah, I don’t know that. Old Braddell, our major, used to say, ‘Reputation, after forty, is like an old wall. If you begin to break a hole in it, you never know how much will come away.’”

“I tell you again, Duff, I’m past scandalizing; but have your way, if you will ‘muzzle the ox,’ and let us get away from this as soon as may be. I want a little rest after this excitement.”

“Well, I ‘m pretty much in the same boot myself, though I don’t exactly know where to go. France is dangerous. In Prussia there are two sentences recorded against me. I ‘m condemned to eight years’ hard labor in Wurtemberg, and pronounced dead in Austria for my share in that Venetian disturbance.”

“Don’t tell me of these rascalities. Bad enough when a man is driven to them, but downright infamy to be proud of.”

“Have you never thought of going into the Church? I ‘ve a notion you ‘d be a stunning preacher.”

“Give up this bantering, Duff, and tell me how I shall get hold of young Conyers. I ‘d rather put a ball in that fellow than be a Lieutenant-General. He has ever been my rock ahead. That silly coxcomb has done more to mar my destiny than scores of real enemies. To shoot him would be to throw a shell in the very midst of them.”

“I ‘d rather loot him, if I had the choice; the old General has lots of money. Stapylton, scuttle the ship, if you like, but first let me land the cargo. Of all the vengeances a man can wreak on another the weakest is to kill him. For my part, I ‘d cherish the fellow that injured me. I ‘d set myself to study his tastes and learn his ambitions. I ‘d watch over him and follow him, being, as it were, his dearest of all friends, – read backwards!”

“This is tiresome scoundrelism. I’ll to bed,” said Stapylton, taking a candle from the table.

“Well, if you must shoot this fellow, wait till he’s married; wait for the honeymoon.”

“There’s some sense in that. I ‘ll go and sleep over it.”